By DAN VALENTI

Korea: The Beginning of the End

Dean Rusk is not the kind of war criminal you associate with the phrase. He wore a suit, had horn-rimmed glasses, and talk in measured tones. He seemed positively avuncular. THE PLANET would put him in that category, however, and not for what most people remember.

Dean Rusk: Architect of the Cold War

Rusk is best known as Secretary of State under President John F. Kennedy. Rusk operated what to our eyes seems like a psychotic philosophy: He favored the ill-proven strategy of military action as a means to contain communism.

For example, this war monger advised Kennedy to launch the disastrous Bay of Pigs action against Cuba and later fought JFK’s decision to pull American out of Vietnam. The president’s convenient assassination scuttled those plans, and the rest is not history but national lament.

But 10 years before taking the job with the Kennedy Administration, Rusk had a major role in setting up the Cold War and positioning “the international communist conspiracy” deep inside the American zeitgeist. The day after the United States dropped a second bomb on a civilian city (Nagasaki, Japan, Aug 9, 1945), Rusk, working for the War Department, argued that Korean should be split into two spheres of influence: North for the Soviets, South for the U.S. The War Department gave him the authority to UNILATERALLY divide the country in two. He chose the 38th parallel. No other country was consulted.

This set into action the “forgotten war” that killed nearly as many Americans a Vietnam in just 20 percent of the time. To this day, the Korean peninsula remains hopelessly divided, with the military, political, economic, and cultural aspects of the split misunderstood, except for a few scholars and historians.

North Korea: Hostility we brought upon ourselves

The fact is that during the three years of American involvement in Korea, the compliant mainstream media, caught in the hysterics of McCarthyism, publicized every atrocity committed by the North and overlooked the ones fomented by the South Koreans and the Americans. The sad truth about Korean is that the corrupt and barbaric Rhee government, which the U.S. supported in the Korean War, along with American military units, committed by far a greater number of massacres and atrocities. South Korean and America were the war criminals in the Korean War. This is the truth, however difficult it is to hear.

The U.S. military stood by and witnessed our South Korean “allies” carry out pogroms against anyone suspected of being connected in any way, even if by rumor, to dreaded communism. As it turned out, there never was a communist menace that imperiled America. We were in Korea solely to establish the National Security State that to this day exists.

Sadly, Korea became the major premise upon which all of post-WWII U.S. foreign policy logic has been founded. It was a false premise of international adventurism and communist containment that we can still see operating in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2010, the boogeyman is not communism but “terrorism,” but that is merely an academic distinction. Thus, the country again finds itself fighting not an enemy but an idea.

“Communism” and “terrorism” are notions, political philosophies (the first geared to economics, the second to war). America had never fought a “notion” in any war prior to Korea. Since then, every, and we mean EVERY, American war or conflict has been against a conceptual “foe.” That is why we never win.

Why would we do this? Answer: To keep the military-industrial complex in command of the United States government. Anyone with an open mind who believes in the rationality of logic can, with a dispassionate bent, study the events leading up to, that happened during, and that followed the Korean War and see that this is true.

The VAST majority of Americans never were told the truth about Korea. Today, this has become irrelevant given the great dumbing down and Lady Gaga-izing of the U.S. We have become a fat, ignorant, and despicable country, full of honest people who have been led astray by their “leaders.” We are raising a new generation of idiots, for whom these issues remain a blank. Or how else would the fakery of Black Friday take hold? We are waltzing into the great, final meltdown.

Marchetti for Mayor and Other Nonsense

Peter Marchetti: Watching to see what Ruberto does.

Not long ago, Pittsfield city councilor Peter Marchetti introduced a measure to endorse the right to collective bargaining. It was classic jerk-off politics, stroking one’s member for the simple reason of instant gratification. In this case, the instant pleasure for Marchetti came from his “pro union” stance as applied to his political ambitions.

One could respect this move if it had been attached to some specific situation, say, a blatant case of Mr. Boss Man crushing his indentured servant employees. However, Marchetti’s measure, which the council endorsed, wasn’t about a need. It was about Marchetti’s eye on the corner office.

Peter Marchetti is watching every move Mayor Jimmy Ruberto makes. If Ruberto sneezes, Marchetti makes a note of it. If Jimmy scratches an itch, Marchetti is jotting down where and when. What Marchetti wants to know is if the mayor plans to re-up for another term. It’s clear from all available signals that former 10-year councilor Dan Bianchi is going to try again in the mayor’s contest in 2011. Bianchi lost by the slimmest of margins in 2009, with some observers still not convinced it was a fair fight based on suspected irregularities in the Ward 4 count.

If Ruberto decides to go for it again, Marchetti will back off, since he will not want to face an incumbent mayor in a primary. If Peter believes that Ruberto will call it a career and head off to retirement in Florida, he will run. Part of that running will be to suck up sufficiently to the labor vote. Marchetti feels he must pave the way to a likely bid by sending the message to labor that he can be bought. Thus, his petition. It should bring smiles to the Big Three unions in Pittsfield: police, fire, and teachers. It should make taxpayers cringe.

THE PLANET will be criticized for this “speculation,” but it is not mere conjecture that prompts these words. It is based on discussions with union sources and a couple of Marchetti’s fellow councilors.

Marchetti is a man of considerable, inherent political talent. However, this talent remains largely latent because its possessor is too worried about making everyone happy and having everyone like him. In other words, he’s acting as he has most often acted: like a politician, wetting his finger so as to judge which way the wind is blowing.

The good citizens of Pittsfield don’t need a politician. They need someone who understands the issues that face the city as a whole and the individuals who have decided to continue to live there. Pittsfield needs leaders with guts, because the continuing budgets issues will not be resolved until the city can get its relationships with the unions on a fairer basis as far as the taxpayer is concerned. We could begin with pension and health insurance reform.

One can knock Ruberto for this and that, but everyone has to concede that Jimmy has taken action. Fine: disagree with him for what he had done, but at least admit he has DONE something.

If Marchetti decides to run, he will have to create distance between himself and Bianchi. That should prove interesting, since both guys served together for years on the council. They know each other well. The positioning of this should make for an interesting campaign.

Will Ruberto run again? Ah, THE PLANET knows, but that would be telling.